Part 5 of 5

Chapter 5, Slovakia and Somosko Castle

Back to the car and headed north toward Slovakia. Beautiful countryside, narrow winding roads, vague road signs, large corn and sunflower fields, occasional horse carts and small villages. We planned on crossing the border at Kral and expected a delay as they checked our papers. We had our passports and auto documents ready, we expected the inquisition like we had going into Romania. As we approached the border there were signs, flags, instructions in several languages and impressive borderesque buildings but no guards. The place was deserted, it almost felt like a scene from a disaster movie and for a bit we felt like we were the only people left on the planet. It really was strange, we drove slowly into Slovakia expecting to see a new EU style border crossing or flashing lights, armed border guards, maybe even a tank but there was nothing. So…basically we snuck into Slovakia. We drove thru a couple of towns, missed a couple of turns, asked directions from a guy who had never seen a map of Slovakia, ate a traditional Slovakian dinner in the midst of a huge party with blue and tan cakes, drank a Slovakian beer and just as quietly snuck out of Slovakia at another abandoned border crossing near Somosko.

I had read about Somosko Castle. A 13^th century castle built on top of a long dormant volcano. The dome is the highest point in the area and a natural place for a castle. You can gaze across the surrounding valleys and see other castles on the tops of many hills.The walls of the dome are steep and rocky. When they started looking for stone to build the castle they discovered that the site chosen for the castle was on top of the largest columnar basalt deposit in Eastern Europe. It’s unclear as to whether they knew what it was but it was obvious to 13^th century castle builders that these polygonal stones stack easier than round stones. The stone work is fascinating; all the foundations of the entire complex are made from stacked basalt. Even when parts of the castle were destroyed it could easily be re stacked, there is no mortar in the foundation. The upper parts of the castle are a mix of stone even some brick here and there. This is basically a ruin, only the east tower remains and it has gone thru several reconstructions in the past 1000 years. The man at the ticket shack, his name really was Zsolt, made it quite clear that you enter at your own risk, the stairs are steep and mossy, the remains of the walls are still piled around and except for a few 2 by 4’s across openings it is safety device free. You can climb down a ancient stairway and stone path into the quarry, I’m quite sure you could carry off as much of the basalt as you wanted, providing you could carry it up the stairs. It is an amazing place that we all enjoyed. We watched the sun set over the mountains and enjoyed the fading light accenting the ruins of Somosko Castle. We left the castle around 8 pm and were back in Budapest by 10:30.

I hope you enjoyed this series, most of the photos are self explanatory or covered in the text.